Germany's defense minister steps down
Source: Agencies |
March 2, 2011, Wednesday
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GERMANY'S defense minister quit yesterday amid persistent allegations that he plagiarized parts of his doctoral thesis, depriving Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc of a man long rated the country's most popular politician.
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, 39, said he had decided to go "not just because of my faulty doctoral work" but because the persistent focus on it threatened to overshadow duties such as overseeing a major overhaul of the German military and troops' deployment in Afghanistan.
"It is the most painful step of my life," Guttenberg said in a hastily convened appearance at his ministry. "Because my office, the Bundeswehr, academia and the parties that support me faced potential damage, I am drawing the consequences that I have and would have demanded of others."
Bayreuth University revoked Guttenberg's academic title last week, saying the minister had "seriously violated" its standards by failing to credit sufficiently some of his sources, but the minister at first sought to cling on.
Guttenberg has been the rising star of Germany's center-right over the past two years. He built a reputation as a plain-speaking man of action in a brief stint as economy minister and then, after Germany's 2009 election, as defense minister.
In that job, he pushed through a plan to end conscription - part of an effort to slim down the German military and make it better adapted to an era in which it faces growing demands to deploy overseas.
But Guttenberg's crisis management after the plagiarism allegations emerged two weeks ago was less impressive.
He initially issued a statement describing them as "absurd," then said he would stop using his title as a doctor only temporarily while Bayreuth University looked into the accusations.
Guttenberg told jeering lawmakers last week that he "did not deliberately cheat, but made serious errors."
Merkel stood by Guttenberg, saying a week ago: "I appointed Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg as defense minister, I wasn't appointing an academic assistant."
But the scandal wouldn't go away, raising the possibility Guttenberg would be a liability in upcoming elections.
"I think that, if this had carried on longer ... it could have done more damage than would making a clean cut now and looking forward," said Oskar Niedermayer, a political science professor at Berlin's Free University.
Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, 39, said he had decided to go "not just because of my faulty doctoral work" but because the persistent focus on it threatened to overshadow duties such as overseeing a major overhaul of the German military and troops' deployment in Afghanistan.
"It is the most painful step of my life," Guttenberg said in a hastily convened appearance at his ministry. "Because my office, the Bundeswehr, academia and the parties that support me faced potential damage, I am drawing the consequences that I have and would have demanded of others."
Bayreuth University revoked Guttenberg's academic title last week, saying the minister had "seriously violated" its standards by failing to credit sufficiently some of his sources, but the minister at first sought to cling on.
Guttenberg has been the rising star of Germany's center-right over the past two years. He built a reputation as a plain-speaking man of action in a brief stint as economy minister and then, after Germany's 2009 election, as defense minister.
In that job, he pushed through a plan to end conscription - part of an effort to slim down the German military and make it better adapted to an era in which it faces growing demands to deploy overseas.
But Guttenberg's crisis management after the plagiarism allegations emerged two weeks ago was less impressive.
He initially issued a statement describing them as "absurd," then said he would stop using his title as a doctor only temporarily while Bayreuth University looked into the accusations.
Guttenberg told jeering lawmakers last week that he "did not deliberately cheat, but made serious errors."
Merkel stood by Guttenberg, saying a week ago: "I appointed Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg as defense minister, I wasn't appointing an academic assistant."
But the scandal wouldn't go away, raising the possibility Guttenberg would be a liability in upcoming elections.
"I think that, if this had carried on longer ... it could have done more damage than would making a clean cut now and looking forward," said Oskar Niedermayer, a political science professor at Berlin's Free University.
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